While forestlands provide optimum bear habitat, agricultural lands can be managed to enhance overall bear habitat quality.  Use of various habitat management techniques on agricultural lands next to or interspersed with forested tracts can serve to improve and expand occupied bear habitat.  Agricultural habitat management practices beneficial to bears could be as simple as crop selection or as intensive as the development of wildlife corridors or even the total conversion of marginal agricultural land to hardwood trees.  The habitat management options chosen will depend on both the site and objectives of the landowner. 

Bear habitat quality can be favorably influenced by both crop selection and location.  Crops such as corn, sugarcane, and winter wheat benefit bears more than soybeans or cotton, not only as forage, but also for cover.  Locating preferred crops adjacent to forested lands and travel corridors helps maximize those benefits.  Leaving a percentage of the crop in areas near forests also benefits bears and other wildlife.

All pesticides and herbicides should be used in accordance with label guidelines and State and Federal regulations.  Application of chemicals to crops adjacent to forested tracts or travel corridors should be done so that adjacent wildlife habitat is not harmed.  A buffer adjacent to forested lands may be left unsprayed, as various plant species in wooded areas adjacent to cropland provide food and cover and could be damaged by drift or inadvertent application.  No chemical labeled as harmful to large mammals should be applied to cropland within occupied or potential bear habitat.

Landowners may opt to develop corridors by leaving land idle and letting it revert to native vegetative cover.  Locating set-aside areas next to forested lands, ditches, or sloughs can provide additional wildlife habitat.  If located next to ditches or in sloughs that join two forested tracts of land, these fallow areas can serve as travel corridors.  When managed properly, vegetated areas along drainage ditches and bayous can provide suitable corridors to allow movement of bears among fragmented tracts of otherwise suitable habitat.  To allow for adequate cover, these areas should be as wide as possible.  If access to drainage ditches is required for periodic maintenance, the corridor could be located on one side of the ditch, leaving the other side open for maintenance access.  For producers participating in an acreage reduction program, set-aside acreage (acreage in a conservation program, like Conservation Reserve Program) can be located or used in a manner that provides beneficial wildlife habitat for bears and other species.

Food plots developed within forested habitat for game may be used by black bears.  Commonly planted forage species include clovers, wheat, ryegrass and other grasses (including bahia).  If maintained, food plots within a forested tract should be distributed to minimize fragmentation.  For example, they could be grouped fairly close together and close to forest borders rather than distributed evenly throughout the interior.

Conservation Programs on Agricultural Lands

If a landowner opts to sign up some or all of his farmland into a conservation program, most of these projects potentially increase bear habitat quality. Site suitability and landowner objectives should dictate which tree species are selected. Where mast producing trees and shrubs are being planted, it would be advantageous to diversify the species, as dictated by the soil and site considerations. A combination of hard mast producers from the red and white oak families and sweet pecan would be ideal along with a small amount of soft mast species such as blackgum, mulberry, hackberry, persimmon, haws, plums, dogwood, and sassafras. Direct seeding or planting of seedlings in one acre blocks would provide sufficient soft mast food resources. One acre blocks of soft mast species that will not compete with larger native trees could also be planted and maintained to promote diversity. Food plots planted in annual crops can benefit bears, especially when corn is planted for summer and wheat in winter. For information on conservation programs available to private landowners, see the Incentive Programs for Wildlife Habitat Restoration section.